


Tiger Balm

by SquareSquid



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst, Damen needs a hug from someone who is uninclined to sexually abuse him, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:37:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquareSquid/pseuds/SquareSquid
Summary: “Of course, why would I ever want to have some sort of interaction with someone who wouldn’t see it as an invitation to sex? My apologies, I shouldn’t have come here.”





	Tiger Balm

**Author's Note:**

> This scene takes place at some ambiguous point after Nikandros finds out about Damen’s scars, but before they return to Akelios. It’s vaguely AU-ish, since some of the things mentioned are slightly out-of-character and others occurred more spread-out through canon.

_ “When he’d imagined a return to Akielos, he’d imagined greeting Nikandros, embracing him, heedless of the armour, like digging in his fingers and feeling in his fist the earth of his home. Instead, Nikandros knelt in an enemy fort, his sparse Akielon armour incongruous in the Veretian setting, and Damen felt the gulf of distance that separated them. ‘Rise,’ said Damen. ‘Old friend.’ He wanted to say so much.” _

  
  


The knock came late at night. Nikandros stood, blinking away the lines of the reports he’d been reading, and moved to open the door to his rooms. Damianos was waiting outside, armor-less, wearing an odd combination of chiton and veretian jacket. The sleeves were long enough they almost covered his hands, let alone the cuff on his wrist.

“I…” He started, eyes downcast. “I need help with something. Can I come in?”

“My lord, you don’t need to ask!” Nikandros stepped aside, allowing Damen entry. He walked in quickly, and moved to stand by the fire. “Has something gone wrong? Has one of the patrols been late in returning?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.” Damen was fiddling with something in his hands; a small jar. He flipped it back and forth as he talked. “You saw my scars.” He fumbled as he finished his sentence, almost dropping the small container, before holding it more securely and fixing his gaze on a piece of stone near the door.

Nikandros tensed. “Yes, I did.”

“There’s a salve. It’s supposed to soften them,” Damen informed the wall, gesturing with the hand holding the jar.  “It should keep them from forcing my back to seize, or impacting my ability to fight. Paschal was helping me with it, but he has other things to deal with. I was... hoping you wouldn’t mind assisting me.”

“Surely you could ask one of the slaves? Or that Veretian snake of a prince who put them there?” Nikandros bit out, still sore from the conversation that had occured that afternoon, and glancing at the faint patches of redness that hadn’t quite faded from Damen’s neck.

Damen laughed at that, a harsh, unpleasant sound. “Of course, why would I ever want to have some sort of interaction with someone who wouldn’t see it as a prelude to sex? My apologies, I shouldn’t have come here.” He turned, ducking his head and walking quickly towards the door.

“Wait, Damianos.” Nikandros stepped quickly to catch his arm. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh really?” Damen responded, arm stiff in Nikandros’ grip for a few seconds longer before he pulled free. “What did you mean, then?”

Nikandros sighed and looked away. “Only that a slave might have more skill, and your..  _ lover _ might have more familiarity.”

Damen scoffed. “More skill, yes. But slaves are the last thing I want near me, especially one that’s being forced to touch --” he broke himself off. “And Laurent is… I don’t think I could bear it if he said no.”

“Ah.” Nikandros forced his hand out of the fist that had formed at Damian’s last comment. “So, what is the easiest way to do this? The chair? The bed?” Nikandros gestured towards his furniture, and watched as Damen visibly relaxed.

“The chair, I think.” Damen replied, tossing Nikandros the jar. He pulled it away from the table and flipping it around so he could straddle it. He slipped off his jacket, folding it in front of himself, then unpinned the shoulder of his chiton, letting it slide down around his waist.

Nikandros took a moment to inspect the salve. It was a burnt orange, smelling strongly of camphor and cloves. “I bet this would never come out of a cloth,” he remarked, dipping in a finger. Damen laughed, surprised. “No, the color comes out fine,” he commented. “It’s the smell you can’t get away from. I don’t expect to be free of it until I’m in the grave.”

Nikandros stepped forward, placing his hand on Damen’s shoulder, only to feel him tense. To cover the moment of awkwardness, he asked “Should I follow the lines of the scars, or just massage it in everywhere?”

“Either is fine.” Damen replied. Lacking anything more to say, Nikandros covered his fingers with the salve and began to work them across the damaged skin in front of him. He felt Damen shudder with the first movement, and then relax into it, slumping forward onto the back of the chair.

Nikandros had never had a chance to look at the scars closely. The lash was not an uncommon punishment in the armies of Akeilos, so he was familiar with the wounds it left. These had indeed been treated, but the marks spanned the entire length of his back, not just the shoulders, and there were far too many of them. As his hand slid past a lash that had landed directly over the kidneys, he couldn’t contain himself anymore.

“These should have killed you,” he whispered.

“No, Laurent wouldn’t have let them. He doesn’t like losing bets.” Damen responded, voice oddly flat.

“Damianos? What did you mean by--”

“Laurent bet his servant that a piece of gold that I would survive, to make him sure he hit hard.”

Damen wasn’t looking at him; staring instead at a patch of soot near the fireplace. Nikandros’ breath caught, his hands stilling.

“Damiano--”

“He really did me a favor, though. You know twelve strokes is the most any one person can hit at full strength, especially without a break. If he really wanted me hurt he would have switched in someone else.”

“Da--”

“I think I still got off easier than the other slaves. I’d take a whip over a brand any day. You should have seen -”

“Damen!” Nikandros shouted, abandoning the jar of salve to grab his shoulders and tug his friend around to face him. Damen turned too easily for a man of his size, and the expression on his face stopped Nikandros for a moment, before he continued.

“You are  _ not _ a slave.”

“Says who?” Damen was meeting his eyes now, and Nikandros almost wished he wasn’t. “Vere certainly thinks I am, or at least I was, for all that the difference might be. And don’t think I can’t see the horror on the faces of the Akelions, or hear the rumors that are going around.”

Nikandros froze. “Tell me their names, and I swear they will never never disrespect you again.”

“It’s not slander if it’s true, Nik.” Damen smiled, but it looked broken. “Shall I count them off? ‘Fucking the Veretian Prince’-- yup, that one’s true. ‘Forced to attend him?’-- same there. ‘Caught off guard and forced to watch while everyone he cared about either died or betrayed him?’” Damen’s smile was approaching manic, and Nikandros couldn’t take it anymore. He dropped to his knees in front of the chair, and tugged Damen down after him into an embrace.

“Not everyone, Damen. Never everyone,” he muttered into Damen’s hair. Damen, who had gone stiff with surprise, let out a wet sort of choking noise, and then buried his face into Nikandros’ collar, and Nikandros drew his arms tighter around him in response.

“This is what I was wanted, you know? When I got away.” Damen whispered. “I was going to swim in the ocean, and I was going to visit the graves, and I was going to find you. It seemed you were the only one who was left. They killed Lykaios in front of me, you know, and my father was gone, and Kastor and Jocaste were  _ worse _ than gone, but you were safe in Delpa, and if I could get away  _ I could still find you. _ ”

“Well. I’m here.” Nikandros whispered back. “And I’m not planning on leaving you alone again.”

  
  


* * *

 

“I really don’t get what you see in that veretian prick, though.”

“He’s just.. Laurent.”

“ _ Exactly _ .”

“He protected the other slaves, you know.”

“And removed the skin from your back. Permit me my judgements.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you planning on letting go sometime this hour?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I…”

“No, then.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> See, the thing is that throughout the series, Damen has very few opportunities for platonic comfort, or even non-sexual physical contact. Basically every interaction he has is sexually-charged, aside from the ones where he is actively being injured. And even when the sex is consensual? It's frequently "consensual," as in "there's still drugs/power play/etc" going on. I feel like that would wear on a person. 
> 
> Also I am fairly sure that at this point in the story, they were, in fact, sleeping in tents. Oh well.


End file.
